


Foster Parents

by occasionalfics



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 15:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16895610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/occasionalfics/pseuds/occasionalfics
Summary: You’ve been with Thor for a while, and in that time, he’s brought home too many foster dogs to count.





	Foster Parents

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted @ occasionalfics.tumblr.com on January 24th, 2018

In all the chaos of courting a God, you’d managed to let just one of his quirks slip past you. You loved him, a lot, and had very few complaints about your relationship, but this…this was getting to be too much.

It started out adorable and totally commendable. Thor really loved animals, you noticed. All animals. You took him to the zoo on your third date and, to this day, he still swears it’s his favorite date you’d gone on. He wasn’t afraid to show a childlike side of his personality in public, and that was part of the reason you knew, from that third date on, that he was…pretty much endgame. There wasn’t much better that you could find, you knew.

But then you bought an apartment together. He only stayed there a few weeks at a time, when he knew he could leave the people of Asgard in the hands of his most trusted advisors. You had an agreement that, while not entirely conventional, seemed to work for the two of you.

The agreement, however, did not cover pets. Dogs, specifically.

It started with a little pug, a tiny, cute thing he’d found in a box on the street. It was straight out of Oliver and Company; he brought the poor, shivering puppy home, gave it a bath while you went to get it food and supplies, and found as many blankets as he could to keep it comfortable. You came back to the apartment to find that Thor had built the small thing a series of tents all around the living room.

Percy, the pug, became a foster pet. Your building allowed dogs, but you didn’t have time or money to really care for one yourself. Thor didn’t exactly like this arrangement, but he agreed nonetheless.

“It’s for the best,” you told him, while Percy rolled around with a new toy. “He’s adorable, and I wish I could afford him right now, but I just…can’t.”

After Percy was adopted by a neighbor, Thor brought home another stray. This one, a shiba inu that clearly had been owned before, didn’t stay long. It had a microchip, which eased your nerves as much as it ignited Thor’s.

“How could someone let something so helpless out on its own?!” he asked after you’d come home from the vet.

“I don’t know,” you said with a shrug. “Some people are ridiculously stupid, I guess.”

“This is abuse,” Thor said.

You agreed. “But,” you said, “mistakes can be made, too.”

“I promise you, right here and now, that if we ever do get a dog of our own, I will not make this mistake,” he said, his face lined with all the seriousness in the universe.

You smiled at him, approached him slowly, and put your hand over his heart. “Maybe this is weird with the dog in the next room, but your compassion is seriously turning me on right now.”

Needless to say, Thor did not go to bed angry that night.

For a while, a whole gang of stray and abandoned dogs came in and out of the apartment. Whenever Thor was home, he brought someone new with him, someone you could groom together and eventually get adopted. The local ASPCA loved the two of you, given your high success rate with turning otherwise difficult dogs into adoptable family pets.

But almost none of it had to do with you. Thor was a natural with the scared, often abused pets of Manhattan. He could take a stormcloud and mold it into a sunshiny day. It wasn’t fair, but only in that comical he’s way too good at this way that made you smile and shake your head.

The thing was, you never kept any of the dogs. You still said you didn’t have the time or money, but you weren’t sure that was the truth. Some part of you knew that you didn’t want to own a dog - it was too much responsibility, and with Thor gone at least part of the time, you’d be stuck caring for the thing on your own. It happened even as you were fostering, but at least you knew with those dogs that, one day, they’d have a family that wanted all of the responsibility. You loved the idea of having dogs, but at this point in your life, you weren’t so keen on the reality of it.

That changed the night he brought home the corgi. It was just a little puppy, in traditional corgi fashion - orange and white fur, a dopey smile on its face, little pointy ears perked up. It plopped along the hardwood floors of the apartment, yapping at pigeons at the windows.

“We can’t keep this one,” you whispered, as if the corgi could understand.

“(Y/N),” he said. “This isn’t one I just…picked up. I picked him out.”

You stared at him. “Excuse me?”

He shrugged. “He was all alone in his kennel uptown. I couldn’t leave him there!”

You continued to stare, blinking slowly. You knew this was different. Neither of you had ever gone and singled out a dog to foster - Thor, more often than not, ran into them on the street and decided they needed rehabilitating. He was right, for the most part, but this…the corgi was different. You could see it in the depths of his eye, the tension built up in his shoulders. You looked at the corgi as it sat politely, staring back at the both of you and sighed.

“You’re gonna go back to Asgard soon and I’m gonna have to take care of him,” you said.

“I could take you both,” he said, earning another stare from you.

“No, you can’t.” You sighed. “Thor, he’s adorable and I know you love him, but…”

You tried to think of a real reason he had to take the dog back, or at least call the shelter and tell them you’d be fostering. But the thing was…you couldn’t. You could see in his face he wanted the dog. It was already his. And when you looked at the dog itself, you had a hard time picturing yourself being able to hand it off to someone else. It was so small, so happy, and you had to admit that it did have his countenance.

“God damn it,” you muttered.

The puppy yapped at you and you rolled your eyes. When you looked back at Thor, you almost jumped. He’d taken a huge step closer to you, and his head was ducked down to your eye level. His smile was almost wider than the surface of his face, and his eyes were so wide, you could hardly believe he wasn’t actually exploding.

“Oh my god!” you yelled at the exact same time that he said, “So we’re keeping him, right?!”

You took a second to breathe, then rolled your eyes again and nodded. “We’re keeping him. Fine. On one condition,” you said.

“Anything,” he said, standing a bit straighter so it was easier to look at him.

“His name is Thorgi. Thorgi jr., Esquire.”

Thor laughed a raucous laugh, throwing one arm across his midsection. “He’s not even a professional attorney!” he said between breaths.

You laughed with him, unable to stop yourself. The puppy, now blessed with a name and a home, barked again, stopping only when you looked at him. His tongue hung out the side of his mouth, and you shook your head but continued laughing.

Maybe you were in over your head, but at least they were both cute as hell. _Could be worse_ , you told yourself.


End file.
